The 12 Ways to Engage & Retain Staff – Part 1

By Andrew Cooke | September 5, 2012

The 12 Ways to Engage & Retain Staff – Part 1

by  Andrew Cooke, Growth & Profit Solutions

Employee engagement is becoming increasingly important as businesses compete for a dwindling skilled labour force as experienced baby-boomers retire and a smaller, relatively inexperienced workforce enters the market and progresses through the ranks.  The need to attract, develop and retain key staff is essential to develop and maintain your competitive advantage, as well as for the business to survive and thrive.
This blog, in 5 parts, is based on the book “The 12 Elements of Great Managing” which explains what every company needs to know about and creating and sustaining employee engagement.  This was based on a Gallup study of over 10 million employee and manager interviews
The key findings and the 12 elements for employee engagement that it uncovered include the following:

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the right materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work who encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone has talked to me about my progress.
12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

Why is Employee Engagement So Important

• Productivity – engaged employees are more productive which, in turn, affects profitability.
• Presence – engaged employees average 27% less abseentism than those who are actively disengaged.  Companies with many actively disengaged workers experience 51% more turnover than those with engaged employees, and have higher associated costs.
• Lower employee replacement costs – typically these can be 25-80% for entry level positions, and for a specialist it can range from 75-400%.

These costs can be very expensive, as seen in the example below:
A company has 100 employees and is experiencing employee turnover of 10% i.e. 10 people a year leave the company.  If these are experienced staff, earning an average of $75,000 pa then this would cost the company from $562,000 to $3,000,000!  And this is all from the bottom line!
Over the next couple of weeks will look at each of the 12 elements in greater detail, looking at how we can take them and implement them effectively.
In the next installment of this series we will be looking at the first three elements:

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the right materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

Which of these elements do you use?  What has worked or not worked for you?  What else have you successfully done that is not in this list?   Look forward to hearing your comments and experiences!
Share the knowledge, share the wealth!

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.